Oral Answers to Questions

Dave Doogan Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Steve Witherden (Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr) (Lab)]

3. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help reduce the cost of living in Wales.

[Dave Doogan (Angus and Perthshire Glens) (SNP)]

7. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help reduce the cost of living in Wales.

[Carolyn Harris (Neath and Swansea East) (Lab)]

12. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help reduce the cost of living in Wales.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dave Doogan]

In just two weeks’ time, the people of Wales will have an opportunity to elect a Government who genuinely care about child poverty in Wales—Plaid Cymru. In Scotland, the Scottish Government’s child payment has helped protect 407,000 children from UK poverty, and Plaid Cymru will do the same if it prevails on 7 May. Does the Secretary of State agree that Labour’s fag-end Administration in Wales has come to an end and Plaid Cymru’s time has come, and not a moment too soon for the people of Wales?

[Jo Stevens]

I do not think the hon. Gentleman can have been listening when I mentioned, in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr (Steve Witherden), that Plaid has admitted that it will cut the budget for child poverty. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has been clear that Plaid would have to make spending cuts or raise taxes to pay for its unfunded manifesto pledges, and at some point before 7 May its leader is going to have come clean on what Plaid is going to do.